Thank you St Martins for the ARC to read and review.

The Wedding Season is marketed as a romance, but not so much. It’s really a story of a woman who has her engagement broken the day before her wedding and how her family and friends rally together to help her through a season of weddings.

I loved The Secret Bridesmaid and this one wasn’t too far off either. It’s about love, heartache and second chances. It’s about finding yourself and loving yourself for who you are—because once you do, you just may find your happily ever after!

🔊Song Pairing: We Are Never Getting Back Together - Taylor Swift

(Because this book was worthy of that song!)

💭What I thought would happen:

When I saw this on NetGalley I screamed and immediately requested as Katy Birchall is an auto buy author for me

📖What actually happens:

Freya has just been broken up with…after 12 years together….in a broom cupboard…the day before her wedding. What ever will she do now? She is just about to enter the busiest wedding season of her adult life where her wedding was suppose to be the opening act.

Her besties come up with a task list in which she must tackle silly and somewhat scary dares at each to get her through this difficult time. Along the way she meets sexy French men, bearded men. Matthew who?!

🗯Thoughts:

Let’s face it ladies…when a tall, laid back man with a beard who works for a brewery comes along…named Jamie (okay that’s just me) our panties go up in flames.

This quote: “Good Lord, who knew a hand in the pocket could be so exciting?!”

^^When you’re looking a bearded beauty in the eye..I felt that quote. I felt it hard.

While I did not love this book as much as The Secret Bridesmaid, I very much enjoyed it. I didn’t need the romance, I loved my home girl
MC doing her thang.

Also, there is an epic moment around 75% through in which you just wish would play out in your life! No don’t be filthy…it’s not a sex scene 😂

As someone who is just entering into wedding season with 4 out of town weddings in 2 months, I needed and wanted this book all the same!

I'm not sure this book was for me. It was fun at times and such a great idea but I just found it hard to get through. I do wish we saw more of Jamie or the weddings in general but there were such great friendships in this book that did make this enjoyable for me even when I wasn't really in the mood to read.

Freya is dumped by her fiancée shortly before her wedding. The rest of the book is about Freya coping with the situation and finding her way to happiness as a single person. Some interesting side characters that provided Freya support. The book started funny with peacocks on the loose. I was hoping for a light hearted quirky novel but didn’t get it. This was more serious than expected. The writing style didn’t work for me. I just didn’t connect to the characters or story..Pacing was off and parts of this dragged. Just not for me.

Thank to to NetGalley and St Martin’s for the ARC.

The Wedding Season is mainly a story about personal growth. After Freya's fiancée calls off their wedding the day before, she is completely lost. She spirals into her grief, and doesn't know how she is going to be able to attend seven more of her friends' weddings this summer. So her best friends set her a challenging task for each wedding to help her keep her mind off her ex. As she completes each challenge, she very slowly begins to feel better. She does things that she never would have done as the person she was with Matthew (her ex). I like how in the book she made lists comparing herself in some situations to "with Matthew" and "now." It really showed how she had grown and changed.

I liked the premise of the book, and I really enjoyed when it got to her beginning to complete the tasks. The first quarter of the book was extremely slow for me and I felt like it was mostly just her wallowing. After that it picked up and got much better. I loved that it was set in England and used the vernacular, and also that she traveled to France and Ireland for a wedding in each. There were also several funny scenes that I loved.

Leo and Ruby were excellent supporting characters and I loved them. The other friends all sort of blurred together for me though. I liked Jaime (the 'love interest,' although I would NOT classify this as a romance) after getting past the first weekend with him being a jerk. I would have loved to have had more scenes between him and Freya - they had fun chemistry.

I would recommend this book if you are looking for a story about dealing with a breakup after a very long relationship, attending many weddings, supportive friends, or a story that shows personal growth. As I said before though, if you are looking for a romance this is probably not the right pick for you.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Griffin for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

I enjoyed The Secret Bridesmaid and was realty looking forward to this book! Freya was a sympathetic protagonist, an organized and genuinely kind person I could root for. The wedding season challenges were fun and did challenge her to grow and heal from her breakup. I can see this book appealing to women in this same life season, with many friends getting married around the same time. I enjoyed the romantic spark with Jamie and the plot line involving her mom and that relationship.

Content wise, there was swearing and some innuendo but no steam other than a kiss, which I appreciate. . The diversity in the side characters almost felt like an agenda was being pushed,, and that does not appeal to me.

Overall, an enjoyable read!

Freya is set to marry her long-term love, Matthew, when he pulls the rug out from under them the day before their big day by canceling the wedding. To make matters worse, it seems everyone else is getting married and Freya has a very full "wedding season" ahead. Her best friends devise a plan with challenges to get her through the summer with fun and daring distractions.

A fun book with great characters that had me really engaged. Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read the pre-release copy - all opinions are my own.

Four weddings and a funeral vibes in this fun romcom about, Freya Scott who’s long term boyfriend Matthew leaves her at the alter. Through out the book you get to be privy to working through all of Freya’s feelings as things get interesting when her friends come up with a list to get our heroine through the wedding season, her failed wedding was only the first of 7 she was set to attend this year.
A great read with witty banter, romance, self love and a heart moving story line

*4.5

This book was super cute. I loved seeing Freya's journey of learning who she is and how to move on. I know that romance was not the main point of the book but Freya and Jamie were so cute.

I received an arc through netgalley.

I really don’t want to spoil this too much for anyone who’s going to read it, just I’m going to keep the review short and sweet this time. The characters are all great in their own way (I wish I had friends like Ruby and Leo!), the plot is fun yet believable and not hoaky like these light, summery reads sometimes are, and there’s my favourite romance trope—enemies to lovers! You felt Freya’s heartbreak and as a reader you follow her on her journey to rediscovery at the end of a long relationship. It was just a lot of fun and I feel like no matter what I say, I couldn’t do it justice.

I wish I still had a season of weddings coming up, but those days are long behind me.

4 STARS

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book was just plain fun. From the time the boyfriend of 12 years leaves Freya the day before her wedding to the satisfying conclusion, I enjoyed it, The challenges Freya's friends invent to get her through the wedding season are entertaining and kept the story moving. For someone looking the escape the serious world for awhile, I would recommend this book. Thank you NetGalley for the advance copy.

Once I got past the 30% mark it got good-very good. loved the supportive friends! The survival list! So creative.
loved how patient Jamie was- he clearly knew what she was going through , he waited, never pushed, until she
was ready.

Matthew? Jerk. Probably mainly be he was not a MAN-didnt know who he was or wanted. And when he did
figure it out, he didn't know how to get it without hurting the people around him.

Honestly-it was a well done picture of a breakup - when you know its not good, but it still hurts to
admit it and move on. Change and moving on is rough but doable.

That wedding speech! Loved it! Kind of sums up the book.

THE WEDDING SEASON was wonderful. This author is another new to me author Kay Birchall, The setting is in London, England and I am partial to English settings. FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL meets THE WEDDING PARTY in this heartwarming rom com about a recently jilted bride Freya is forced to attend seven weddings in one summer hence "the wedding season".

Freya's friends invent challenges to help Freya get through the wedding season. Freya's ex was invited to the weddings too before he decided to cancel their wedding.

Freya works for a big corporation and she meets Jaime. He works for an independent small brewery and their witty dialogue made me laugh.

It's always fun to see the British sayings like Uni in reference to University and to read the dialogue between Freya and her friends. I loved how Ruby said "I don't give hoots ". Ruby is a hilarious character.

Thank you St. Martin;'s Press and NetGalley for the temporary loan of the digital ARC and giving me the opportunity to read this heartwarming story.

3.5 Stars. This was a cute and uplifting story about Freya, who gets jilted the day before her wedding to her longtime boyfriend. It happens right before a very busy wedding season starts for her which is a difficult thing to get through when heartbroken. I overall really enjoyed reading about Freya finding herself and using the list her friends come up with for her to get there. Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC.

When Matthew calls of the wedding the day before trhey are meant to say “I do,” Freya is devastated. Unfortunately for her, this is the year of weddings and she has 8 to get through in the coming months. Luck is a little on her side however, in Leo and Ruby. Her two best friends have a plan to help her get through wedding season. Each wedding she will have a task to complete to help distract her from thinking about Matthew.

Umm hello, is Matthew my ex? He didn’t leave me the day before a wedding, but damn when they were talking the bullshit coming out of his mouth just sounded so damn familiar. Best scene of the entire book, when the girls run into him at the restaurant. That’s all I’ll say, you’ll just have to read it to find out. I thought this was a super cute and fun rom com and I totally felt everything Freya was feeling throughout the book. I appreciated that the focus of the tasks was not to find Freya a new man, but to help her find herself and be happy with who she was while realizing that maybe Matthew wasn’t right for her either.

I really enjoyed “The Wedding Season” by Katy Birchall. It was a breezy read but did have a lot of heart. Specifically, the scenes with Freya and her mother were very emotional. I loved the relationship she had with her two best friends and her dad and brother. Those relationships added a great amount of depth to the book and freya’s character. The setup of the wedding challenges was a great way to thoroughly engage me from the beginning. I also liked how the author handled the closure between Matthew and freya. It was emotional and well done. Charlie was a great romantic lead and I found myself crushing on him quite a bit. I would have loved a bit more spice from this book (between Charlie and freya) but i know that’s a personal preference! The family dynamics reminded me of my favorite book “beach read” by Emily Henry. Overall, this was a fun summer read that had a lot of heart-my favorite kind of read! I rated this book 5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to preview this book!

The Wedding Season by Katy Birchall is a standalone fiction story with some romance. I hesitate to call it a romance novel because the main character's personal journey was centric to the story, and the romance was an aspect of that journey.

Freya's wedding will kick off a wedding season of eight weddings that she will be attending, including her own. Her perfect wedding-filled summer was not supposed to begin by being dumped in a broom closet the day before her wedding, however. To help her survive the next seven weddings, her best friends Ruby and Leo, create a series of challenges for Freya to complete - one for each wedding. Ranging from being the last on the dance floor to kissing a stranger, Ruby and Leo hope that these will help Freya discover how to enjoy being on her own again.

The Wedding Season's theme can be divided into pretty even thirds - grief, acceptance, and growth. I was happy that Katy didn't dive right from a broken engagement into a new relationship. Freya and Matthew had been together for 12 years, and that's not something that you get over in a few days. The growth that Freya experienced throughout the book was so lovely, and I was cheering for her every step of the way.

Shout out to Ruby and Leo for being some of the best, most supportive friends I've read in a novel. You could feel their love for Freya so clearly, and I enjoyed their interactions via phone and text. They also brought a lot of humor to the story.

I enjoyed that we got to know Freya's family throughout the story as well! Her brother, who lives in the US, her dad, and her mom all played a role in the story in their own ways. Katy did a great job bringing video chat and phone conversations into the story in a very natural way.

Though it was not the centric plot of the novel, I did love the romantic story arc. The love interest was a foil of Matthew, and I enjoyed the build of the love interest and Freya's relationship. I think if you go into this book with expectations of a slow burn, clean romance you will love it as much as I did.

Thank you to St. Martin's Griffin and Netgalley for an eARC in exchange for my review.

4.5 stars // Freya just got dumped. A day before her wedding. In a broom closet. Things couldn’t get worse, except that her wedding was supposed to kick of a season of weddings - so now she has to survive seven weddings while mending a broken heart. The solution: a challenge to get her mind off of things at each wedding - each challenge more difficult than the last. It’s going to be a very interesting wedding season for Freya.

This book was the perfect combo of hilarious & heartwarming. Freya has the best friends who stick by her side & support her through a rough time. They comfort her but also push her out of her comfort zone which I loved. It was so fun to see Freya’s transformation into the person she wanted to be instead of who she thought she was & the romance was slow burn but so swoon-worthy. If you liked her first book The Secret Bridesmaid you will probably love this one too!

Thank you NetGalley, St. Martin’s Griffin, and Katy Birchall for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! The Wedding Season is a fun and realistic novel that focuses on Freya after her fiancée Matthew calls off their wedding the day before. It shows how she learns to cope and heal from what’s happened with the help of her best friends. I thought that this one was really engaging and I laughed out loud a couple times while reading. I recommend it!